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OT - Penguins lacking class

I just watched the Carolina Pittsburgh game and while neither team looked overly impressive I was disgusted by Pittsburgh's actions. Two of Carolina's players (Tuomo Ruutu and Erik Cole) were taken out of the game as a result of injury. Both injuries resulted from a Pittsburgh player intentionally colliding knee-to-knee with the Carolina player. As I see it, this is a gutless play that can only be seen as an intent to injure. Neither incident was particularly close to the puck and the Carolina players were both caught off guard.

I was calmly rooting for Carolina at the start of this game. I will now also be rooting against Pittsburgh.

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How does one go about hitting someone's knee with their own knee and assure that you don't injure yourself at the same time? Is there a way to do it with the knee pad or something? Knee pad to the side of knee?

I always hear about this injury and picture it like two basketball players slamming knees and they both end up hurt.

When you know its about to happen, you can tense the muscles in your leg and brace for it.

The offending player skates towards his target with his legs spread a bit more than shoulder-width. The target is looking the other way and therefore not bracing himself for the hit. The offending player then slides through his target such that his tensed leg attempts to go through the knee of his target.

The offending player is usually going faster. Typically, in a collision, the slower object is affected to a greater extent.

That's the same way that Pittsburgh plays. Crosby was over the top with his complaining during his first couple of years, but that's something that he has outgrown already by this point in his career and isn't really applicable in a current conversation. Aside from how Crosby was, I highly doubt you could give one single example of Penguins players who don't conduct themselves just as you describe Chicago's young players.

There was nothing wrong with either of those plays. This sounds a lot more like a Wings fan who was just looking for an excuse to root against the Penguins in a series without a real good reason to do so. A Wings fan rooting against the Penguins. How shocking.

I am indeed a Red Wings fan. As I said, I was calmly rooting for Carolina at the start of the game (my sister lives in Columbia, SC). I really didn't have anything against the Penguins until I saw two identical plays in one game that took Carolina players out of the game. As a Wings fan, I used to hate the Avs. In recent years, I've disliked the Ducks. There is not a Wings-Penguins rivalry. There might be after next series. Both plays were knee-to-knee collisions where one person was paying attention, the other wasn't. As far as I'm concerned, those weren't classic hockey hits.

How is it in any way ridiculous to say that I feel like a number of NHL players were trying to injure players of the opposing team in the conference finals? This is the same league where this happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R95CWh8CKcg

My point is no more ridiculous than yours. Either could be correct. From my perspective (obviously not completely objective), these plays were in poor taste. From yours, they were accidental collisions.

Stop acting like there are facts on your side. The only facts are that two Hurricanes players left the ice with lower body injuries after colliding with Penguins players in a particular fashion. You have gone from defensive to annoying, sir.

Actually there are plenty more facts than that. You're just choosing not to recognize those facts. It's laughable that I'm the one who has gone from "defensive to annoying" but you're the one who has decided to stoop to juvenile name calling. Are both of our positions just opinions? Yes. Are all opinions of equal weight? No. You've admitted that you're biased on this issue. Now of course you'll probably say that because I'm a Penguins fan that I'm automatically biased, but don't bother going there. That would be a baseless accusation and would be an intellectually dishonest comment to make. You really should just recognize that your comments are made out of bias and get over it.

I've been nothing but conciliatory up till that point. I have said neither of us know for sure, but apparently you still think that you do. I guess saying someone is annoying is considered juvenile name calling. I also suppose that it is unfair to call you biased. My bad. I was unaware of your sensitivity.

I've had one point this whole time:
two very similar incidents raises suspicion.

Your point:
The plays were clean.

I am done. Point made. Sorry if i hurt your feelings.

P.S. I am probably more annoyed by you because of the Clarence Beeks thing than anything else. Just the look of him brings up my ire. The bastard!

Is it not also a "conclusory leap" to call both of those plays "accidental"? Neither of us know the real intentions of the players. My "conclusorism" came from the fact that the same play happened twice with identical results. I saw no such plays in the previous hockey game that I watched. Therefore, I "conclused" that there was some likelihood that the plays were intentional.

Why would a Wings fan bother to root against the Penguins? the Wings kicked sand in their faces last year and then signed one of the few players on the team who played with enough tenacity to be a champion. I would imagine that most of the Wings would wish every Cup final would be as easy as Pittsburgh was.

No cup final is ever truly easy, but Pittsburgh has proven that it doesn't play the kind of hockey that wins Stanley Cups at this point in their development.

In other words, for there to be a rivalry, both teams have to beat each other when it counts the most. So far, Pittsburgh hasn't held up their end of the bargain yet. Hopefully, I'm still saying this in another five or ten years.

So when you were talking about players talking trash, whining and making excuses, what you really meant was that you didn't like the fans talking trash, whining, and making excuses. That's a big difference.

There are some young Peguins who conduct themselves admirably.
Yes, Crosby has toned it down quite a bit this year. I think Therrian was a bad influence on Crosby. Therrian was setting a bad example for Crosby to follow. The Pens are better off without him. (Therrian)

To be fair, speaking as a Hawks fan I can tell you that Tuomo Ruutu can get hurt if you fart in his general direction, or it sure seemed that way when he played for the Hawks. Of course, they trade him and he plays basically a full slate. Didn't turn out that bad at all for the Hawks though, Andrew Ladd has been a solid player for them all year and is actually 3 years younger than Ruutu.

I am indeed Swedish. I was born in the same town as Nick Lidstrom. Furthermore, my mom runs a Swedish school (every other Sunday) in the Detroit area and Nick's kids are students there. In high school, I interviewed him for a journalism assignment. It was pretty great.

As for the game, I would love to go. Unfortunately, financial considerations will probably prevent me from doing so.

I think you're dead wrong. Esp. with the Cole injury-- yes, it was knee on knee but I really think both players were just reading the play and didn't see each other. The Pen (I believe it was Matt Cooke) was skating shoulder width apart, coasting to the far side of the zone. Cole was definitely skating harder, as he was the forechecker. A lot of times with these knee-on-knee hits, the guy that gets hurt is the guy with better speed, simply because his weight is low and in front of him, whereas Cooke was solid on both skates with a wide center of gravity.

Exactly. This is one of those plays that looked a hell of a lot worse until you go back and actually look at what happened. I can understand how the Cooke-Cole incident could lead someone to jump to the quick conclusion that it was somehow a dirty play, but saying the same thing about the play between Ruutu and Scuderi is a heck of a stretch.

TP (Pittsburgh): What are your thoughts on Cooke's knee-on-knee hit on Cole? As bad as Ovechkin's on Gonchar? Suspension-worth?

EJ Hradek: (3:12 PM ET ) I think it was much worse than Ovechkin's play. I think he just mistimed the hit. Cooke has a history of dirty play--that's who he is. He came in looking to take a shot, and with those things, you never know if you're going to get hurt or not. I thought it was an unnecessary play trying to take advantage of a player in a vulnerable spot. But I don't think he'll be suspended because of the difficulty of getting to the heart of his intent.

EJ Hradek: (3:30 PM ET ) I thought it was kind of a dirty play. There might have been an accidental nature to it, though he did swing his leg behind him. Again, I don't know if it's a suspendable offense. But I wouldn't be happy were I the Hurricanes.

I hate it when players get injured. Especially players on the other team. I always want my favorite teams to play the best and beat the best. It feels good to win. But if you win and the other team was missing a star player or two... it feels different somehow.